Friday, September 4, 2009

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 21

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 21 (November 1973)

Amazing Adventures 21 (November 1973) features Killraven in “The Mutant Slayers”, written by Don McGregor and illustrated by Herb Trimpe:

Killraven and his crew are still battling the Warlord, a human lackey of the Martians. At one point in the comic, Killraven comes upon the ruins of Yankee Stadium (ca. 2018) and provokes an attack by humans and animals mutated by the release of toxins from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons deployed in a failed effort to stop the Martian invasion of the Earth (back in 2000).

These are some genuinely bizarre, tongue-in-cheek creatures; my favorite is the amalgam of man and crab (!) The scene depicting the mutilation of Killraven’s prickly comrade Hawk- by crab-man drool- is a demented gem.

No other comic of the era could match ‘Killraven’ for its lunatic imagination and energy….and even today, only Britain’s 2000AD / Judge Dredd books really succeed in approaching these qualities half as well…

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